She is a kind of a nun, I suppose: keeps no servant: only a girl comes in and does for her, and goes home at night. I saw her yesterday, walking in the garden there. She seems rather young to be all alone like that; but perhaps there's some more of 'em coming.
They sort o' cattle mostly goes in bands."
Henry asked what was the rent of the house. The woman did not know, but told him the proprietor lived a few doors off. "I shall take this house," said Little. "I think you are right," observed Ransome: "it will just answer your purpose." They went together, and took the house directly; and Henry, by advice of Ransome, engaged a woman to come into the house in the morning, and go away at dusk. Ransome also advised him to make arrangements for watching Grace's garden unseen. "That will be a great comfort to you," said he: "I know by experience. Above all things," said this sagacious officer, "don't you let her know she is discovered. Remember this: when she wants you to know she is here, she'll be sure to let you know. At present she is here on the sly: so if you thwart her, she'll be off again, as sure as fate."
Little was forced to see the truth of this, and promised to restrain himself, hard as the task was. He took the house; and used to let himself into it with a latch-key at about ten o clock every night.
There he used to stay and watch till past noon; and nearly every day he was rewarded by seeing the Protestant nun walk in her garden.
He was restless and miserable till she came out; when she appeared his heart bounded and thrilled; and when once he had feasted his eyes upon her, he would go about the vulgar affairs of life pretty contentedly.
By advice of Ransome, he used to sit in his other house from seven till nine, and read at the window, to afford his beloved a joy similar to that he stole himself.
And such is the power of true love that these furtive glances soothed two lives. Little's spirits revived, and some color came back to Grace's cheek.
One night there was a house broken into in the row.
Instantly Little took the alarm on Grace's account, and bought powder and bullets, and a double-barreled rifle, and a revolver; and now at the slightest sound he would be out of bed in a moment ready to defend her, if necessary.
Thus they both kept their hearts above water, and Grace visited the sick, and employed her days in charity; and then, for a reward, crept, with soft foot, to Henry's window, and devoured him with her eyes, and fed on that look for hours afterward.
When this had gone on for nearly a month, Lally, who had orders to keep his eye on Mr. Little, happened to come and see Grace looking in at him.
He watched her at a distance, but had not the intelligence to follow her home. He had no idea it was Grace Carden.
However, in his next letter to his master, who was then in London, he told him Little always read at night by the window, and, one night, a kind of nun had come and taken a very long look at him, and gone away crying. "I suspect," said Lally, "she has played the fool with him some time or other, before she was a nun."
He was not a little surprised when his master telegraphed in reply that he would be down by the first train; but the fact is, that Coventry had already called on Mr. Carden, and been told that his wife was in a convent, and he would never see her again. I must add that Mr. Carden received him as roughly as he had Little, but the interview terminated differently. Coventry, with his winning tongue, and penitence and plausibility, softened the indignant father, and then, appealing to his good sense, extorted from him the admission that his daughter's only chance of happiness lay in forgiving him, and allowing him to atone his faults by a long life of humble devotion. But when Coventry, presuming on this, implored him to reveal where she was, the old man stood stanch, and said that was told him under a solemn assurance of secrecy, and nothing should induce him to deceive his daughter. "I will not lose her love and confidence for any of you," said he.
So now Coventry put that word "convent" and this word "nun" together, and came to Hillsborough full of suspicions.
He took lodgings nearly opposite Little's house, and watched in a dark room so persistently, that, at last, he saw the nun appear, saw her stealthy, cat-like approaches, her affected retreat, her cunning advance, her long lingering look.
A close observer of women, he saw in every movement of her supple body that she was animated by love.
He raged and sickened with jealousy, and when, at last, she retired, he followed her, with hell in his heart, and never lost sight of her till she entered her house in the valley.
If there had been a house to let in the terrace, he would certainly have taken it; but Little had anticipated him.
He took a very humble lodging in the neighborhood; and by dint of watching, he at last saw the nun speaking to a poor woman with her veil up. It revealed to him nothing but what he knew already. It was the woman he loved, and she hated him; the woman who had married him under a delusion, and stabbed him on his bridal day. He loved her all the more passionately for that.
Until he received Lally's note, he had been content to wait patiently until his rival should lose hope, and carry himself and his affections elsewhere; he felt sure that must be the end of it.
But now jealousy stung him, wild passion became too strong for reason, and he resolved to play a bold and lawless game to possess his lawful wife. Should it fail, what could they do to him? A man may take his own by force. Not only his passions, but the circumstances tempted him. She was actually living alone, in a thinly-peopled district, and close to a road. It was only to cover her head and stifle her cries, and fly with her to some place beforehand prepared, where she would be brought to submission by kindness of manner combined with firmness of purpose.